J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

The page has been used vertically for two nearby subjects on the River Danube, as identified by Cecilia Powell1 with the help of Turner’s inscriptions. At the top is a view downstream at Aschach, approaching midway between Linz and Passau, with the spire of the church of St John the Baptist and St Nicholas; beyond, Powell has noted the outline of the Traunstein,2 a prominent mountain about thirty miles to the south, in the Salzkammergut region east of Salzburg.

Below are distant and close-up views of Schloss Neuhaus, high on the north bank about five miles upstream to the north-west of Aschach, overlooking the first of a series of tight turns; for other views see under folio 23 verso (D30046). Cecilia Powell has noted that as the Danube flows to Linz from Passau, it ‘pursues its course by means of several spectacular bends’, giving Turner the chance to study the ruined castles as he sailed up this stretch ‘looking quickly now upstream, now downstream’,3 as shown in various sketches interspersed with other subjects between folio 17 recto and here (D30034–D30052).4 Although his route upriver was straightforward, his somewhat haphazard use of this book to record it was not. For the geographical sequence of identified views between Vienna and Passau (see under folios 40 recto and 31 recto; D30076, D30058), see this sketchbook’s Introduction.